The insurance is designed to protect buyers from the loss or damage of laptops, smartphones, and e-readers, including theft, broken screens, and water damage.

“Paying by using Bitcoins stands for innovation and with CoverYou Insurance, we want to present the creation of a new sort of insurer; one who is consumer-driven and innovative,” Ewoud Uphof, Online Strategy Consultant for CoverYou said.

CoverYou claims to be the first European insurance company to accept payments in bitcoin. Another insurance firm, InGuard, which is based in the US, has been accepting bitcoin payments since 2013.

CoverYou founder Yvonne Geijs explained: “Developments in this market are progressing very quickly. Our smartphone insurance is a popular product at the moment because of the value of smartphones nowadays. Adding BitCoin as a payment method means embracing new technology and looking ahead.”

The legal status of bitcoin is currently being debated in the Netherlands. On May 16th, 2014, the court of Overijessel ruled that bitcoin was not money but “a medium of exchange”. The Dutch Bitcoin Foundation responded to this by launching a ‘Bitcoin is Money’ campaign.